TPC Journal-V6, Issue 4- FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor /Volume 6, Issue 4 383 All participants’ ( n = 83) responses for strongly agree and agree were combined to report the subsequent findings. Sixty-six percent ( n = 55) believed that counseling programs’ use of CBCs on applicants and students is important to ensure future clients’ welfare and safety. When asked if counseling programs completing CBCs on applicants and students violate the privacy rights of applicants and students, 17% ( n = 14) either agreed or strongly agreed that it did not. Thirty- six percent ( n = 30) believed that counseling programs can face legal consequences if CBCs are not conducted on applicants or students. Further, 24% ( n = 20) responded that they believed that counseling programs can face legal consequences by performing CBCs on applicants or students. Thirty-three percent ( n = 27) believed that there should be a CACREP standard regarding CBCs of applicants and students to ensure consistency and provide an established protocol. When asked if performing CBCs on applicants and students will result in a disproportionate screening-out of minority applicants and students, only 14% ( n = 12) believed it would. Discussion There were two primary aims of this study: (1) to assess the current use of CBCs by CACREP- accredited master’s counseling programs and (2) to offer current information for programs to reference when considering the use of CBCs and creating relevant policies. Within the field of counseling, few studies have explored the use of CBCs and related policies (Erwin & Toomey, 2005; Swank & Smith-Adcock, 2014). As aforementioned, Erwin and Toomey conducted a study in 2005 with only 50 programs that responded. Additionally, only five of the programs that responded used CBCs, which limited the utility of their findings. Swank and Smith-Adcock (2014) surveyed counselor educators about the effectiveness of their current screening procedures for applicants. Their participants reported wanting to use more reliable and objective methods such as background checks, but were unsure how to do so with minimal guidance in the literature. In the present study, 27.7% ( n = 23) of respondents reported requiring applicants to undertake CBCs. Although this may seem like a small portion of the sample, it still offers the field knowledge that can augment findings by Erwin and Toomey (2005). This result is not surprising given that there are so few guidelines for programs to use when considering CBCs as a screening and gatekeeping tool. The use of CBCs also remains underdeveloped in other fields such as nursing, medicine and sports science (Farnsworth & Springer, 2006; Kleshinski et al., 2011; Weuve et al., 2008). In fact, Farnsworth and Springer (2006) reported that fewer than 50% of the medical programs they surveyed reported using CBCs. They found this extremely concerning as the field of nursing requires all graduates to pass a CBC in order to become licensed. This is a related issue for those wanting to become a licensed mental health counselor as 17 states report requiring an applicant to pass a CBC in order to become licensed. All the states that do not require CBCs ask for the applicant to describe any criminal offenses on their application and provide further documentation when necessary. Although 41% of the participants surveyed in the present study reported the use of CBCs as ethical, this finding did not correspond with actual use of CBCs (26.5%). One factor may be related to fear of potential liability when using CBCs. In a study conducted by Swank and Smith-Adcock (2014), participants, who are educators, stated that they would like to use background checks, but they felt hesitant due to the litigation that can come with such methods. These fears may be exacerbated by the fact that the use of CBCs is not universal across university programs and there may be little knowledge about how to seek out university lawyers when developing these requirements. At this time, most university guidelines around CBCs focus on use with employees (Swank & Smith-Adcock, 2014). Weuve et al. (2008) described that lack of guidance and misuse of results continues to keep graduate programs from using CBCs. In the present study, only 13 of the 23 programs who reported